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The Beauty of God 


v 


G. ciRECTOR 

■a 



Nashville, Tenn. 
COKESBURY PRESS 
1923 



rB'ft 12 - 5 ' 


Copyright, 1923 

BY 

Lamar & Barton 


OCT 20 ’23 


©C1A760448 

Vli | 


MY MOTHER 

HARRIET CAROLINE RECTOR 

WHO LIVED A BEAUTIFUL LIFE ON EARTH 
AND WHO NOW LIVES A MORE 
BEAUTIFUL LIFE 
IN HEAVEN 







CONTENTS 


Page 

Introduction. 7 

I. “Creator and Created. 13 

II. Nature.<. 17 

III. Manifold Beauty of Human Life.29 

IV. Jesus Christ. 72 

V. Conclusion. 113 

(5) 













INTRODUCTION 

pHERE is much paganism in the popular 
conception of beauty. In the distinction 
made between the material and the spirit¬ 
ual their relationship has been too often 
ignored. Both have a divine significance 
and fulfill a divine purpose. The world 
and the flesh have been classified with 
the devil because the devil has gotten into 
them. Get the devil out of them and the 
Christ into them and the world and the 
flesh become beautiful. God gave his Son 
to save the world. Our bodies are temples 
of the Holy Ghost. 

Those who would be spiritually minded 
make a mistake when they relegate the 
utility and beauty of the material to those 
who are unspiritual. Unbelievers, in turn, 
have made much of physical beauty, even 
considering it of the highest import; not 
being able, through lack of spiritual appre¬ 
hension, to relate the higher and the lower 

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8 


The Beauty of God 


in spiritual interpretation. There is much 
difference between the head and the feet, 
but still a connection. One could live with¬ 
out feet, but not without a head. However, 
the loss of feet entails a handicap. Beauty 
is a whole. It has higher forms and lower 
forms. If either of these forms is ignored, 
there is a serious loss. 

Beauty is good and only good. Is there 
any beauty that is bad? No. Badness 
spoils beauty. Beauty being good, it must 
come from God. Is it not the privilege of 
the child of God to appropriate and interpret 
the gift? The mind and heart of Him who 
made the gift may then be better understood, 
and the blessing of what is given may be 
fully realized by the recipient. 

This book is written with the hope of cor¬ 
recting, to some extent at least, the pre¬ 
vailing error that there are good things in 
this world that can be appropriated, used, 
and their intended benefits obtained apart 
from God. It cannot be done. Ignorantly 
and selfishly used, without reference to the 


Introduction 


9 


“ Giver of every good and perfect gift,” 
life’s good things fail to yield their fullness of 
joy and satisfaction. 

When we get rid of our paganism and 
become imbued with the spirit of truth and 
holiness, beauty of all kinds will suggest and, 
in some measure, express the ideas of 
harmony, order, symmetry, and grace ex¬ 
isting in the divine mind. No physical 
form, no literary product, no painting, no 
statuary, no architecture, no music, no 
poem, no oratory will be considered beauti¬ 
ful unless it give some spiritual suggestion 
and bring the heart and mind in closer 
touch with God: when we get rid of our 
paganism. 

Beauty has been desecrated. Dragged 
from her sacred relationship to Deity and 
made to minister to the pride and lust of 
those who have no fear of God before them, 
the visage of beauty has been strangely 
marred. The wreaths that misguided dev¬ 
otees of earth-born ideals have placed upon 
her brow are not becoming. The smoke 


10 


The Beauty of God 


from altars where strange gods are wor¬ 
shiped has shut off the light of heaven and 
obscured the face of beauty. When men 
dissociate God’s gifts from God who gave 
them, men lose their way; they wander in 
the confusion of unbelief, and misapply, or 
wholly ignore, the suggestions, inspirations, 
and teachings of the world in which they 
live. 

The Beauty of God has been revealed— 

1. In nature: “The heavens declare the 
glory of God; and the firmament showeth 
his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth 
speech, and night unto night showeth knowl¬ 
edge. There is no speech nor language, 
where their voice is not heard.” (Ps. xix. 
1—3.) “The invisible things of him from the 
creation of the world are clearly seen, being 
understood by the things that are made, even 
his eternal power and Godhead.” (Rom. i. 
20 .) 

2. In man: “And God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness.” 


Introduction 


11 


(Gen. i. 26.) “Beloved, now are we the 
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be; but we know that, when he 
shall appear, we shall be like him; for we 
shall see him as he is.” (1 John iii. 2.) 

3. In Jesus Christ: “Jesus saith unto 
him, Have I been so long time with you, and 
yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he 
that hath seen me hath seen the Father: 
and how sayeth thou, then, Show us the 
Father?” (John xiv. 9.) “And the Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and 
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only 
begotten of the Father,) full of grace and 
truth.” (John i. 14.) 























































The Beauty of God 

I 

, CREATOR AND CREATED 

T5 EAUTY is inherent, stamped in the na- 
ture of its possessor. The high col¬ 
oring of flowers on an animals back 
would be out of place; a dog the color 
of a poppy would be ludicrous. Nursery 
ditties, suitable for little children in the 
home, could awaken no sense of the beauti¬ 
ful if sung in a great cathedral, where the 
soul rises in reverent worship upon the wings 
of sustained and impassioned song. 

Since beauty lies so deep, it is a part of 
creation and comes from God. Every form 
of beauty must have found its origin in the 
mind and heart of God. The artist must 
conceive his picture, the poet dream his 
dream, or else there is no picture, no poem. 
In the arid West large towns flourish, wide 
valleys yield abundant harvests. The health, 

(13) 


14 


The Beauty of God 


productiveness, and prosperity of these places 
find their source in adaptation to improve¬ 
ment, and in streams that flow from the 
heart of the mountains, whose waters are 
dispensed to the thirsty lands below. Forth 
from the hand of God has come this earth 
with all its endowments for utility and 
beauty. Forth from the heart of God 
pours that flood that nourishes and sustains 
the beauty of the world. 

The beauties of landscape, of sea, of sky, 
of color, of form, of fitness, of all thought 
and imagery, of truth and love, of honor and 
justice, of mercy and of majesty—all are 
of God—can be traced to the mind and pur¬ 
pose of God; for he conceived them, fash¬ 
ioned them into being, and, with man’s 
cooperation, guarantees their enlargement 
and perfection. 

Then surely God loves and cherishes the 
beauty he has made. So much has been 
said of the wrath of God that many think 
of him as an irascible tyrant, grasping for 
their joys, trampling under heavy foot the 


Creator and Created 


15 


garden of their hopes and casting somber 
clouds across the crystal light of their sky. 
It is not so. He wo$ld be a wanton Deity 
that created to deploy; like the painter 
that put the excefiince of his genius upon 
a canvas for the insane pleasure of tearing 
it into shreds; or like a gardener that tended 
never so carefully a beautiful flower, that, 
in a paroxysm of folly, he might grind it 
under his heel. God is the author of beauty 
and is displeased when it is marred. 

The disposition of young people to beauti¬ 
fy themselves is not the sign of a depraved 
nature. Older people too often reprove the 
young for their delight in pretty clothes and 
for their efforts to make themselves look 
better. A sense of the beautiful is natural 
and innocent and should be carefully con¬ 
trolled and trained, not obliterated. If the 
council of some should prevail and they 
should succeed in destroying in the young 
the appreciation of good appearances, a 
fatal blunder would be made, resulting in 
crude tastes and the loss of self-respect. 


16 


The Beauty of God 

Mankind is too often the enemy of God’s 
beauty. The beauty of this earth has 
suffered much through the carelessness, 
cupidity, and wanton sport of man. Forests 
have been removed; streams polluted, 
choked, and diverted; fishes, birds, and wild 
things of the woods have been destroyed. 
The term man is used in the generic 
sense, for woman is not guiltless. Let good 
taste decide. Which is more beautiful, the 
burnished wings of a bird in swift flight, 
flashing in the sunlight, or stretched upon a 
hideous piece of headgear called the latest 
style? Which more beautiful, the live bird 
in the tree, quivering with joy as it sends its 
rapturous song through wood and field, or 
the dead bird on the hat which is worn to 
church, whose voiceless shrunken head, set 
off by lusterless bead eyes, makes dumb * 

appeal from one s vanity and cruelty, even 
while one prays? 


II 

NATURE 

TT 7"E live in a beautiful world, God’s 
* * world. Beauty is found in dawn 
of day when nature wakes refreshed 
from sleep, and fields adrip with dew flash 
diamond glints in glory burst of rising sun. A 
fleckless sky whose air is pure, washed clean 
by recent rain, and one whose dome of blue 
holds here and there a group of sunlit heap¬ 
ing cloud forms, alike are beautiful; and so 
are radiant sunsets with their after-fire glow 
on sky and cloud and lingering gleam on 
mountain crest. And beauty may be found 
freshed in hush of twilight hours when work is 
done, and quiet falls with gathering shadows; 
in sound of bird wings, nest-ward bound, 
cutting in swift flight the growing dusk; in 
darkness settling deep, concealing and thus 
giving voice to shy, defenseless creatures, so 
they may have their say and not be afraid; 

2 (17) 


18 


The Beauty of God 


in passionate night-winds whose breath is 
sweet with strangely mingled odors from 
unknown, fragrant sources, now sighing 
music notes of sounds from unseen origins, 
now panting to be away in haste to some 
mysterious destination. 

And so is beauty seen in vales secluded 
and in lonely lakes; in wandering paths 
that wind through dales and over hills; 
in nooks made dark by shade; in clear, cold, 
gurgling springs; in meadows where the 
sunshine sometimes falls asleep; in moonlit 
glens where rabbits play at night; in abrupt 
turns of roads that show perspective of long, 
billowing vistas. 

Again is beauty seen in undulating fields 
of wind-swept wheat; in waving fields of 
corn that spread green banners to the sum¬ 
mer breeze; in growing fields and harvests 
ripe and shocks of golden grain; in autumn 
woods where dead leaves drift in heaps and 
lie piled up in corners of rail fences old, 
where squirrels frisk in haste to lay in 
store the nuts and acorns frost and wind 


Nature 


19 


have scattered on the ground; in silhouette of 
bare-limbed trees against the tinted glow of 
winter’s evening sky; in warmth and cheer of 
blazing hearth, while gales blow cold from 
ice fields far and nature sleeps beneath a 
covering of snow. 

Sublimely beautiful are great forest 
boundaries, which stand in solitude and 
silence and muse upon the mysteries of the 
ages; or murmur cadences of age-long mem¬ 
ories when gentle breezes blow; or roar 
resistance to the stress of equinoctial storms; 
or wail loud terror cries when hurricanes 
rend with brutal might. Magnificently 
beautiful are mighty ocean waves that rush 
against rock-breasted coasts and foam, as 
if with rage, because they cannot beat all 
barriers down; that surge with threatening 
mien upon defenseless beaches, then change 
their minds and lie down quiet on the sands. 
What strange unworded messages sea winds 
suggest! What calls there come from over 
trackless main to put to sea and “sail be¬ 
yond the paths of all the Western stars”! 


20 


The Beauty of God 


A solemn beauty reigns in desert lone and 
vast and wild, by awful stillness thralled, by 
barren desolation whelmed. Lakes and 
trees and things that live appear at times 
upon the arid waste, then vanish, leaving 
still the destitution of its long sand stretches. 
At sunset hour resplendent spectrum hues 
are weaved in shrouds of pastel colors and 
spread in reverent pity o’er the desert’s 
somber death. The lonely mystery of those 
weird, untraversed reaches casts a spell of 
pleasing fascination; and the wind-swept, 
sun-baked, wide immensity urges to infinite 
realms of idealization. 

The majesty of beauty is seen in rugged 
mountain ranges. Huge sapphire gems they 
seem to be, blue gleaming in pellucid at¬ 
mosphere, whose ponderous links are bound 
in decoration on the heaving breast of 
mother earth. Again aurora hues appear 
upon their lifted heights and make them 
look like massive thrones of power adorned in 
opalescent glory. Lest we forget their right 
to rule earth’s scenic grandeur, rich robes of 


Nature 


21 


royal purple ofttimes hang upon their 
rugged shoulders, and peaks upraised shine 
clean and white in blazing sun, nor yield 
their crystal crowns of snow to summer’s 
heat. 

Yes, God’s beauty may be found in 
nature everywhere: in sounds and scenes 
and season’s change; in rain and mist and 
driving storm; in shining day and deep, clear 
skies; in flowers and birds and brooks and 
trees; in rolling floods and mighty seas; 
in stars and suns and infinite spaces. 

Nature Interprets 

This earth, with its innumerable scenic 
effects, with its forces of land and sea and 
sky, interprets the unformulated feelings and 
desires of the human heart. Nature parallels 
man, descending to the profoundest depths 
of the most pungent grief or rising to the 
most exalted heights of ecstasy. Through 
placid days of prosperity and through 
troubled deeps of adversity, along the path¬ 
way of childhood to old age, nature’s moods 


22 


The Beauty of God 


are as variant as those of the human soul. 
Her balance of light and shade, her storm- 
pent cloud to-day, and her crystalline sky 
to-morrow, her balm-laden breeze just now, 
and then her tempest wind with lightning 
shock—all these emblemize the heart of man 
with its joy and its sorrow, its peace and its 
struggle. Tennyson found it so when he 
wrote: 

“Break, break, break, 

On thy cold grey stones, O Sea! 

And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 

O well for the fisherman’s boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play! 

O well for the sailor lad, 

That he sings in his boat on the bay! 

And the stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill; 

But O for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still! 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! 

But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me.” 

Nature interprets life both by contrast 
and by similarity. The sound of beating 


Nature 


23 


sleet and rush of winter winds at night 
but emphasize the comforts of a well-built 
home where light and warmth and genial 
company abound. And then again the 
night wind, crying round the eaves and 
soughing through the trees, gives voice to 
grief and mourns in sympathy with the 
broken-hearted. 

The sea, upheaved by tempest wind and 
breaking on the barriers of the coast, 
declares that earth’s foundations are secure; 
and also says in symbol language that truth 
will stand though lashed by error’s fiercest 
opposition. The deep-voiced sea repeats 
within its rocky caves the groans of hapless 
ships by storm beset, moaning dirges sad 
for those gone down, and shouting hoarse 
and mighty songs of victory for those that 
would not yield. Both eulogies for sailors 
brave, who fought the winds and waves in 
vain and lost, and loud acclaims of praise 
for those who fought and won, are spoken 
by the sounding waves that break upon the 
ocean’s wild and lonely boundaries. 


24 


The Beauty of God 


The boom of thunderstorms and roar of 
devastating floods and shriek of ripping 
hurricanes not only symbolize but put in act 
and speech the tragic drama of a human 
life; while days of calm, with chastened light 
and songs of birds and bloom of fragrant 
flowers, affirm the blessedness of those 
whose hearts are pure and are at peace with 
man and God. 

Nature Inspires 

The beauty of the Lord in nature is an 
inspiration. Stand upon the bank of some 
great river and feel the stress of its flood 
move in your soul an infinite desire for 
endeavor and achievement. Catch the 
song of morning birds from hedgerow and 
leafy covert and renew your youth, and make 
your heart innocent again like that of a 
little child. Lift your eyes to the light of 
some far-off star coming through trackless 
spaces of the wide night heavens to your 
window and to you, and it will suggest that 
your integrity should be as constant and 
inviolable. 


Nature 


25 


Nature’s persistence in completing her 
purpose of growth and development gives 
an object lesson that should inspire determi¬ 
nation in those who contend with adverse 
conditions in reaching the ideal of life. 
Through frost and heat and drought and 
flood and accident and unfavorable cir¬ 
cumstances, she struggles on and reaches the 
goal. Her persistent courage is contagious. 
Nature bears scars as well as man. She 
suffers silently but continues her pursuit of 
the end to be attained and at last arrives. 
Human experience takes place upon a field 
of conquest over whose battle ground surge 
the opposing forces of life and death. The 
causes involved cannot be compromised, 
the issues presented cannot be evaded, the 
results obtained cannot be ignored, the 
ideal to be realized cannot be abandoned. 
It’s a fight to the finish, a battle to the death. 
Nature never waves a flag of truce, never 
holds a parley, never makes a compromise. 
Nature fights and wins, and so may we. 


26 The Beauty of God 

Nature Encourages Worship 

The beauty of nature leads to worship. 
Walk amid the deep woods at night, breathe 
their atmosphere of balm, and watch the 
wind push back reluctant branches of the 
trees to let the moonlight in to chase away 
the shadows—and not only will your tired 
mind and body be at rest, but you will be 
inclined to pray. Far from the clatter of 
business strife and the gabble of folly 
pleasure bent, made cool by fragrant winds 
and awed by sacred silence, one’s heart 
ascends to Him who dwells beyond the stars. 
And as one prays, His peace that passeth 
understanding comes down upon the soul, 
and love doth touch the place and mix its 
perfume with the perfume of the flowers, 
and change the dewdrops on their leaves to 
tears of joy. A song bird resting in some 
dark tree top close by, awakened by the 
tossing of the restless wind, breaks forth in 
rich, clear strains of purest melody; and 
when the song has ceased and all is still 
again, the music of one’s childhood days 


Nature 


27 


comes floating in upon the soul like voices 
from some far-off shore. Old evening hymns 
are heard once more, and lullabies that 
soothed the spirit of a child grown tired of 
play, content to quit his stormy little sea 
of strife and find at last love’s haven in 
his mother’s bosom. What waves of peace 
roll o’er the lonely strand of manhood days 
when one recalls the memories of the 
hallowed past! What songs, triumphant o’er 
the tumult of the day, the forest sings at 

night! What pure ambitions and what 

* 

holy thoughts the quiet depths of woods 
awake! 

The dim perspective of far-reaching moun¬ 
tain ranges, outlined against the sky at 
dawn, reminds of spheres above the common¬ 
place; while hurtling crags, deep-cut by 
untrod gorges and draped with early morn¬ 
ing clouds, suggest inviolate sanctuaries to 
which the soul may rise and find communion 
with its God. And when the atmosphere is 
clear and sunlight floods the whole, those 
massive piles appear so close at hand that 


28 


The Beauty of God 


one may feel the nearness and the majesty of 
Him who gave them substance and raised 
their mighty forms. And when at night the 
moon spreads silver sheen upon the snow- 
clad summits of the range, the one who con¬ 
templates the scene and prays will get the 
vision of another realm, a realm beyond the 
mountain heights, unsoiled by sin and 
bathed in light from God’s exceeding glory. 


Ill 

MANIFOLD BEAUTY OF HUMAN 

LIFE 

T HE beauty of God in human life 
transcends, by far, that in what is 
generally denominated nature. A beau¬ 
tiful woman is more fair to look upon 
than a flower or a landscape. A handsome 
man is more majestic than a tree or a moun¬ 
tain; for human beauty is invested with a 
threefold character: mental and spiritual, as 
well as physical. Without these in com¬ 
bination there can be no perfection of human 
beauty. It is well to remember that there is 
a subtle connection between these three 
features of human beauty—physical, mental, 
and spiritual. The higher invariably affects 
the lower. 

In an intelligent creature, capable of 
moral distinctions, there can be no perma¬ 
nent charm without intellectual and moral 
excellence. The most perfect feature, the 

(29) 


30 


The Beauty of God 


most graceful form, the most delicate tint 
of color in the complexion, without genuine 
goodness of heart, are even offensive instead 
of pleasing. The fascination that is felt 
under the spell of physical charms devoid of 
morality is born of lust, and is far removed 
from a sense of the beautiful. The possessor 
of moral and intellectual attractions may, if 
need be, dispense with the physical and sus¬ 
tain no great loss. Good fruit does not 
always come from good-looking trees, nor 
do trees that look well always yield good 
fruit. The purpose of the fruit tree is good 
fruit, sound and of fine flavor. The purpose 
of human life is more than show; it is in¬ 
telligence, honor, truth, and love—character. 

To think that goodness and beauty are 
not related, that there is an antagonism 
rather than an affinity between the two, is 
gross error. “ Poor thing! She is not pretty, 
but she is good.” Foolish one that believes 
such a statement. A good person cannot be 
ugly, a bad person cannot be beautiful. Did 
you ever see a beautiful snake? Whatever 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 31 

may be its sinuous grace and variety of 
coloring, it is repulsive and repulsive only. 

So great has been the delusion regarding 
physical charms, as independent of mind 
and heart, that many of our young people 
who might have been the proud possessors 
of this threefold beauty, trusting their all 
to the physical and neglecting the intellect 
and the soul, have become useless and 
grievous members of the home, and have 
made of themselves simpering idiots in 
society. Girls who tog themselves up in a 
variety and profusion of dress (the profusion 
often lacking), having neither ideals nor 
noble impulses, forthwith become dummies 
for showing clothes. The only difference 
between them and dummies in the show 
window is that they can walk and chatter. 
Between the two, the silent, motionless 
dummies are preferable. Faces can be im¬ 
proved, but rather by anointing the heart 
than by lotions on the skin. Heads may be 
made to look better, but rather by ideas 
within than by the arts and ornaments of 
the hairdresser without. 


32 The Beauty of God 

Body 

However, beauty of face and physique 
are not to be despised. Good features and a 
pleasing personality are valuable assets in 
the work of life. One who is unprepossessing 
in personal appearance sustains a handicap, 
at least on first acquaintance. This handi¬ 
cap is in time overcome when the mind 
and heart are right. But good looks 
make a favorable impression when one is 
being introduced. A wry face and an ill- 
formed body are nothing to boast of. The 
expression is sometimes heard, “He is so 
ugly that he is attractive/’ That is merely 
the attraction of a curio. No one should 
aspire to be a curio. Whatever can be done 
to improve the face and figure is legitimate, 
provided the effort is not carried to excess. 
Time and effort in that direction should be 
limited, for physical attractions are second¬ 
ary. 

Health should be no hindrance to piety. 
It is really essential in accomplishing life’s 
worthy purposes. A few, just a few, sick 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 33 

people have been successful. Accepted as a 
gracious provision of Heaven for happiness 
and success, health becomes an occasion for 
thanksgiving and is used for the good of 
humanity and the glory of God. When the 
muscles tense and flex in response to the 
challenge of physical exercise; when the 
blood rushes along its appointed channels 
with unimpeded progress; when the nerves 
vibrate with zest in answer to all pleasing 
sensations, and are never agitated by those 
that are not pleasing; when food is relished 
and the processes of digestion and assimila¬ 
tion are unconsciously performed; when 
sleep is untroubled and one awakes re¬ 
freshed and invigorated; when great tasks 
are presented, and the body is prepared to 
answer “Ready”—then physical beauty is 
at its best, and will be worth something to 
the possessor thereof. 

Mind 

The light of intelligence is necessary to 
good looks. In fact, whatever is in the 
mind comes to the surface of the countenance 


3 


34 


The Beauty of God 


for expression. Eyes and mouth and linea¬ 
ments, all the features, merely transmit 
what is back of the face. If there is intelli¬ 
gence there, something interesting will be 
coming out in the expression. If there is no 
intelligence, the face will show a blank, for 
there is nothing else to show. Again, our 
features are windows through which others 
look into our house. A vacant room, though 
viewed through a well washed window, is not 
interesting; there is nothing to engage 
interest. What though our eyes be bright, 
if others looking through them see nothing 
but emptiness back of them? 

» Lay hold on truth. Furnish the inside of 
this room of the mind with useful pieces of 
knowledge and information. Kindle a bright 
enthusiasm on the hearthstone of the heart; 
transfer rows of books from the library to the 
convolutions of the brain; have comfortable 
seats of meditation there; set up a workroom 
adjoining, where sinews of thought are 
knit together, where cables of power are 
wrought from knowledge and purpose and 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 35 

high ideal; have the cabinet of memory 
sitting close by, filled with material; let 
reason pass on all that is done; have the 
balances of judgment in order; make the 
ceiling high, so that imagination can take 
a flight now and then; put the police badge 
upon the will, so that order may be ob¬ 
served and every faculty kept at work. 
When the gates of the mind, which are found 
in the front part of the head, are opened, 
something pleasing will be seen by others, 
and that which is within will come out and 
adorn the possessor with genuine beauty. 

Two young men were sitting on a bench 
in the park. They were well dressed, but 
their general demeanor betrayed the fact 
that they were strangers to the real meaning 
of existence. Evidently exhausted with the 
foolish rounds of their social swirl, they had 
sought the quiet and cool of the park to 
refresh their jaded systems. With careless 
abandon, one fixed his vacant gaze upon the 
ground and seemed lost in reverie. The 
other, noticing the abstraction of his com- 


36 


The Beauty of God 


panion, turned to him with agitated concern 
and said, “Bill, stop thinking; you make 
me nervous.” Long since had he, the 
speaker, stopped thinking, and it made him 
nervous to see anyone else apparently en¬ 
gaged in that laborious and painful exer¬ 
cise. 

Entertainment and excitement are sought 
until the overwrought interest is surfeited, 
and in its place comes irritability in the pres¬ 
ence of the common responsibilities of life. 
Instead of the normal relish that one should 
feel in the performance of duty and in the 
enjoyment of recreation, nerve disorders, 
often amounting to hysteria, take possession 
of the unfortunate being. The reading of 
good literature and sober thought make a 
fine antidote to this frenzy. 

All endowments of the Creator are given 
for development. The flower can be made 
more fragrant and beautiful by care and 
cultivation; the tree more symmetrical by 
pruning and culture; the animal better 
looking by selective propagation and feeding. 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 37 

It is so with the mind. It takes work to have 
an attractive mind. The process of mental 
development is tedious and laborious. A 
trained mind justifies the time and labor 
necessary to produce it. And the products of 
this trained mind justify all the activities 
necessary to accomplish its worthy ends. 
The sculptor emerges from amidst the dust 
and plaster and bits of broken stone and 
strips of metal that clutter up the place in 
which he works. From out therefrom he 
brings the statue of some hero of the past or 
present whose courage, sacrifice, and strength 
are shaped in every lineament of the face and 
figure he has made. The statue is placed in 
some hall of fame that the greatness of the 
past may not be forgotten nor the present 
lose its inspiration. 

This plastic endowment of mind, which 
is the gift of God, may be so perfected that 
it will elicit the admiration of all who behold 
its pleasing and powerful movements; and, 
while unfolding to others the intricate and 
wonderful mysteries of truth, will bring to 


38 


The Beauty of God 


the possessor thereof the supreme rapture 
which Kepler must have felt when, in his 
scientific discoveries, he exclaimed, u O God! 
I think Thy thoughts after Thee.” 

Having a trained mind, apply it wisely. 
Its beauty may be marred, even destroyed, 
by its application to unlovely objects. 
Heed the advice of one who possessed one of 
the biggest, best trained minds this world 
has ever known. “ Finally, brethren, what¬ 
soever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatso¬ 
ever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; 
if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise, think on these things.” (St. Paul.) 

Morals 

But personal beauty requires more than a 
healthy body and a well-trained mind. 
Moral adornments are requisite. These are 
elements of character that come from rigid 
discipline and arduous effort in contact with 
conditions that often seem adverse to the 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 39 

objective to be attained. Yet these condi¬ 
tions, if properly used, used with courage 
and untiring zeal, afford the needful exer¬ 
cise and yield the nutrition necessary to 
moral worth. All about us, around us, 
above us, and beneath us are the forces that 
try us and at the same time nourish us. 
The ooze at the roots of the lily is black, but 
the flower is perfect in its glistening white¬ 
ness. The odor of the muck beneath the 
plant is not sweet, but the breath from the 
lily’s mouth is perfume. The beauty and 
sweetness of the lily come from beneath as 
as well as from above. 

Many admire the beauty of moral char¬ 
acter though they have it not. They are 
unwilling that its process of growth and 
development take place in them. Self- 
denial seems hard, sacrifice looks to be loss, 
the discipline of moral stamina appears to 
be rigid and severe. Moral courage involves 
the possible danger of social censure, humil¬ 
ity means humiliation, and to be independ¬ 
ent in opinion and conduct is to be uncon- 


40 


The Beauty of God 


ventional. And are they right? Their 
mistake is that they are looking at the proc¬ 
ess and not considering the ultimate prod¬ 
uct. The roots of the oak grovel in the 
dirt and grip the hard rocks which they 
encounter. The branches fight the winds, 
the buds encounter the frosts; while the 
bark stiffens itself against the biting cold, 
and the body of the tree writhes under the 
twisting torture of the storm. But from the 
ground beneath and from the air above the 
oak gathers sustenance for its strength and 
beauty. 

Moral weaklings keep to the cover of cus¬ 
tom, and to the established usages and ac¬ 
cepted standards of the majority. Patience, 
in their case, indeed ceases to be a virtue 
and becomes exasperation. Faith is either 
a mere assent to the claims of religion, or an 
evasive myth that has no practical value. 
Hope is nothing more than a sentimental 
longing for something better, without much 
expectation of reward. Love is a kind of 
self-infatuation that desires not to minister, 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 41 

but to be ministered unto. They have no 
beauty of character. Their virtues are 
plucked flowers, pinned on, that soon wither. 

Religion 

But even moral excellence does not com¬ 
plete the beauty of character. The Chris¬ 
tian religion brings into character a charm 
that cannot be attained by self-discipline 
alone. Religion makes it possible to draw 
from a source beyond the limit of unaided 
mortal reach—God. The strength of morali¬ 
ty comes from one’s unyielding conflict with 
vice. This conquest cannot end in complete 
victory unless our weapons are “ mighty 
through God.” The field is never cleared 
entirely of the enemy without the presence 
of the Captain of our salvation on the battle 
ground. Morality is man alone; Christianity 
is man and God together. Morality at its 
best is but feeble in its pursuit of virtue. 
Christianity not only vanquishes vice, but 
also makes virtue gloriously possible. 

St. Paul mentions three fundamental vir- 


42 


The Beauty of God 


tues of Christian character: faith, hope, and 
love. Let us consider these in the order 
named, remembering that no virtue is an 
abstract quality to be considered apart from 
a personal intelligence, having a conscience 
and a will, and related to other personal 
intelligences and the Supreme Being. 

Faith is one and the same in all of its 
exercises. There is not one kind of faith re¬ 
garding material substance, another kind 
with respect to people, and still another as 
applied to God. It is the same faculty 
directed to different objects and differs only 
as its object differs. The object to which 
faith is applied determines the character of 
the one exercising the faith. Men may put 
their faith in money until the lines about 
their mouths remind one of the puckerings 
made by the drawstrings of a money bag, 
and their hearts get hard like silver dollars. 
A man may put his faith in cattle, raise 
cattle, buy and sell cattle, think cattle, until 
his face resembles that of a steer and his 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 43 

manners become as rude. A merchant may 
put his faith in merchandise, to the exclusion 
of everything else, and get to himself a 
countenance as blank as a bolt of cloth, or 
as dull as a piece of cheese. One may 
believe in one’s own self-importance till one 
shows the strut and bluster of a well-known, 
lordly, barnyard fowl, whose glory ends in a 
Thanksgiving feast. One may cultivate the 
earth, never looking up and afar, until, at 
the last, it will be said of him, “of the earth, 
earthy.” A man may subscribe to the appeal 
of sensuality as the chief satisfaction of life, 
until the fiber of his moral being becomes 
sodden like the flesh of a body that is dead. 

When one puts faith in Christ, one 
becomes Christlike in spirit, in manner, and 
in appearance. His tenderness and com¬ 
passion will abide in the heart and beam in 
the face. The light of His refinement will 
illumine the soul and rest upon the brow. 
His courage will flash in the eyes and banish 
fear from the heart. Troubles that per¬ 
turbed rest and disconcerted every task 


44 


The Beauty of God 


shall disappear. Misgivings, anxieties, and 
forebodings shall cease. The aim of life will 
be directed with accurate precision and 
all opposition laid low. One’s integrity will 
be established and one’s mission discerned. 
To such an one will come the majesty" of 
Him who overcame and put all enemies 
under his feet. 

Faith is not altogether an intellectual 
exercise. Hypotheses are accepted by the 
intellect for purposes of demonstration; 
but if reason does not arrive at a sound con¬ 
clusion, the hypotheses are rejected. The 
process of faith is not a demonstration. 
The predominant characteristic of faith is 
trust. Our confidences are not won through 
abstract demonstrations. A child whose 
intellect is largely dormant, at least un¬ 
developed, can exercise faith. What is 
more beautiful than the simplicity and 
confidence of a little child’s trust or faith? 
Let not our learning and wisdom take from 
us that spirit of trustfulness shown by those 
little ones who were glad to get into the 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 45 

arms of Jesus, and feel against their little 
breasts the heartbeat of the Son of God. 

It is in the experiences of life that reach 
the heart where faith is tried and from 
which faith comes forth wrecked or made 
strong. The most devastating doubts do 
not arise from the intellectual problems of 
religion; but rather from those ordeals that 
wound our affections and leave destitution 
where once joy abounded. The supreme 
test of Abraham’s faith was the sacrifice 
of his son. Rebellion is prone to rise when 
it seems that the heart is being rifled of its 
treasure. Only then can faith sustain and 
keep the staggering soul from despair. 
And if, like Abraham, we meet the test, we 
find that we still have our heart’s treasure, 
and the promise of God is fulfilled. Faith 
in God ofttimes leads through purging fire, 
but the soul comes forth from the ordeal 
one hundred per cent pure, refined, beauti¬ 
fied. 

Do not say you have no faith. Faith is an 
element of the human soul. In chemistry, 


46 


The Beauty of God 


the last analysis of a substance separates it 
into its constituent elements. Thus reduced, 
if one of the elements is eliminated and those 
remaining are recombined, a different sub¬ 
stance than the first is the result. Reduce, 
if possible, the soul into its constituent ele¬ 
ments; eliminate, if possible, the element of 
faith and recombine. A human soul would 
not be the result of this new combination. 
Faith cannot be eliminated. An object 
must be found and will be found upon which 
faith may be exercised. This application 
of one’s faith determines whether its exer¬ 
cise will mar or beautify. Then, have faith 
in God. God’s beauty will be manifest in 
those who put their faith in him. 

Hope is not altogether a sentiment. 
Hope as portrayed in the picture of the 
three Graces, all feminine, that we used to 
admire is not altogether true; and, for that 
reason no doubt, the picture has ceased to 
attract attention. Hope is limited to no 
specific gender. It is an element in both 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 47 

sexes alike, but its predominating quality is 
masculine rather than feminine. 

Hope has sentiment to be sure, but senti¬ 
ment is hope’s embellishment; the heart of 
hope is fire and its arms are steel. Hope is 
exemplified not by a wistful maiden, but by 
a strong man who laughs at seeming im¬ 
possibilities, and who girds himself for 
stupendous tasks. Hope awakens us at 
night, pushes together the charred ends of 
lost endeavor, kindles anew the dying embers 
of ambition into hot flame, pierces the veil of 
the future with its glorious light of anticipa¬ 
tion, sends the live steam of passion through 
all the conduits of the will, and cries, “H 
shall be done.” 

Hope is the mighty impulse that fires the 
will and makes it like unto a big engine 
drawing a train of cars, which sends its 
tug of strength back to the last dragging 
dead weight of unrealized desire, and pulls 
it on over plain and mountain crest, through 
cloud and shine, through beating storm and 
placid calm, to the far-off goal of achieve- 


48 


The Beauty of God 


ment. Hope forms the ideal, sets it up in 
the far-away days that are to be, and, with 
dauntless confidence, urges body, mind, and 
soul to its attainment. Hope, with volition 
as the motor, is the aeroplane that lifts the 
soul from the sordid grounds of selfish 
interest and, with the speed and power of 
multiplied storm winds, rises above the 
limitations and obstructions of time and 
sense, overtops the mountain ranges of ob¬ 
stacle, difficulty, and impossibility, receives 
God’s wireless call from the landing field 
of the soul’s destiny, and sends ahead the 
answering signal, “ Coming.” 

We cannot do without the stimulus and 
sustenance of hope. The farmer is encour¬ 
aged by hope from seeding time to harvest. 
Though discouragements may be numerous, 
and disaster seem inevitable, the man of 
business does not give up; for has not hope 
said to him, “ You can”? The housewife, in 
the monotonous round of the same duties 
each day, finds the monotony all gone when 
hope pictures her household in comfort and 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 49 

her children established in honorable man¬ 
hood and womanhood. The clerk, the 
office man, and those who perform the same 
tasks daily do not find this performance a 
treadmill, but a highway with ever-changing 
interest; because hope is telling them all the 
while of the good things the wage will get, 
and how valuable their service to the 
progress of the world’s work. The traveler 
faints not, nor grows tired, as he climbs the 
mountain, so be it home lies beyond. The 
sailor recks not of wind and wave, for by 
them and through them and over them and 
beyond them he sees through hope the 
anchor cast and love awaiting his return. 

The moil and toil of life’s pilgrimage, its 
stretches of climb and its intervening ex¬ 
panse of opposition, become invested with 
concern, and even with relish, when hope 
gives full assurance of the reward. The 
discipline of self ceases to be tedious and 
heart-breaking when hope lifts up the ideal 
of purity and strength and declares it shall 
be attained. Strenuous service for the 
4 


50 


The Beauty of God 


betterment of others, for the elimination of 
wrong, and for the supremacy of righteous¬ 
ness becomes a privilege rather than a duty, 
when hope gives the vision of Christ’s 
reign on earth and his kingdom established 
in the heart of mankind. We are saved by 
hope; saved from lethargy, from inefficiency, 
from cowardice, from despair. Fear is the 
antithesis of hope. Perfect love casteth out 
fear and hope takes its own appointed 
place. 

Faith and hope work together. When the 
stolid indifference to spiritual ideals is 
encountered in the hosts dominated by 
materialism; when the vulgar force of money 
power, estimating values in dollars rather 
than in character, sways the multitude, and 
those who have not wealth cringe with fear 
before the overbearing devotees of mammon ; 
when custom, however foolish or corrupt, 
becomes the rule of conduct; when propriety 
is disregarded, and fashion, however in¬ 
decent, is made the monitor of dress; when 
moral conviction and sound principle, as 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 51 

grounds of choice, are abandoned for those 
of policy, expediency, and personal gain; 
when so many love darkness rather than 
light — then it is that faith and hope save. 

Have both faith and hope in the power 
of God who still rules; in his patience and 
goodness that will not abandon the race 
which he has created; in his prevailing love 
that will break the hardened human heart; 
in the Spirit’s ability to reveal the wretched¬ 
ness of sin and the beauty of holiness; in the 
Gospel of Christ to awaken in man his 
dormant preference of good to evil; in the 
ability of Spirit-filled men and women to 
lead their fellows from bondage to freedom; 
in the power of the Holy Ghost to fully 
cleanse the heart from sin and flood the 
soul with light and life—then will the social, 
civic, and religious conditions of the present 
day cease to cause dismay, but will arouse 
the noblest and holiest activities of which 
we are capable. In the exercise of these 
activities there will appear in us the beauty 
and excellence of true worth; and in those 


52 The Beauty of God 

for whom we labor there will be revealed 
the majesty and glory of righteousness. 

Love cannot be defined. It must be ex¬ 
emplified—yea, experienced—to be under¬ 
stood. One must be the possessor of love, 
the giver of love, and the recipient of love to 
know its full meaning. Love softens and at 
the same time strengthens. Love is all 
tenderness, yet subscribes unflinchingly to 
the most extreme sacrifices. Love is the 
greatest motive force in the world; not 
ambition, nor greed of gain, nor desire for 
power, but love. Throttle love and the 
whole fabric of society would go to pieces. 
Stronger than mammon is love. Hotter 
than furnace fires for driving intricate and 
powerful machinery is the flame of love upon 
the altar of the human heart; for it puts in 
motion human agencies that nothing else 
can move and utilizes power from the 
throne of God. The paid nurse is faithful 
and efficient, but she must have rest. The 
mother nurse, though frail, attends her 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 53 

sick child beyond all expectation of endur¬ 
ance. Her love sustains her. God is love, 
and love for that reason is very strong and 
very beautiful. 

Love creates an atmosphere. When the 
writer was a lad living four miles in the 
country from town, it was arranged one fall 
that he should go to the school in town and 
board and return home each Friday after¬ 
noon. The plan suited the boy, only that 
part of it of returning home for each week-end 
was not attractive; there were chores to be 
done. The first part of the week at school 
was pleasing, but by Friday the schoolboy 
was homesick. It had been arranged that 
an older brother should come with the 
means of transportation home. The brother 
was there by the time school was out, but 
must attend to some business for an hour 
or more before starting. There was an 
urgent pull across the hills toward home 
upon the heart of the lad, and a ready 
response in his legs. He decided to walk, and 
get there by the time his brother was pre- 


54 


The Beauty of God 


pared to start from town. Though the 
autumn sun was slipping down behind the 
western hills and long, indistinct shadows 
were stretching out across the landscape 
through the “Indian summer” haze, some¬ 
how things began to brighten as home was 
neared. Coming at last to the hilltop over¬ 
looking the home place, a mellow welcome 
floated up from the cow bells in the valley 
below. Passing in the back way, the 
milch cows standing at the lot gate seemed 
to have missed the absent one and rolled 
their wondering eyes around as if saying, 
“Well, you’ve gotten back.” And the 
guinea fowls over in the fence corner were 
actually saying it, “Got back! Got back! 
Got back!” The yard gate always had a 
peculiar squeak never before interpreted. 
This time, as it was opened, it whined 
plainly and cheerfully, “Howdy do-oo.” 
Walking into mother’s room, she was found 
sitting by the open fireplace. The glad sur¬ 
prise in her dear face and the tender em¬ 
brace of her arms explained it all: Love was 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 55 

there. And the beauty of that love had 
pervaded the landscape and the autumn 
haze and all the surroundings of that humble 
dwelling place. 

Years passed, many years. The one-time 
lad returned to the old homestead to revive 
the memories of bygone days. Father and 
mother had long since moved away, far 
away, to the “ house not made with hands.” 
Brothers and sisters were gone. The place 
was in the possession of strangers. The 
house was still standing, the same as in 
former years. But there was a change, the 
change one notes in a friend who has be¬ 
come indifferent. The attendant features of 
boyhood days were there: cattle, fields, trees. 
Yes, all the trees were in their proper places. 
But there was no welcome. Even the elm 
tree, where he used to skin the cat, did not 
seem to remember him; and the old oak, 
upon whose big low-branching limb he used 
to sit and play with his pet squirrel, had 
quite forgotten him and seemed to say, 
“Who are you and what are you doing 


56 


The Beauty of God 


here?” The light had lost its softness, the 
hills their haze of dreams. The only sound, 
distinct, was the cry of a flock of wild geese 
high up in the sky, winging their long flight 
to a more genial clime for the winter in the 
far south. Waving their grey wings in a 
last farewell, the whole flock glimmered to a 
speck in the pallid distance and was finally 
lost to sight. And then, almost inaudibly, 
the autumn wind through the bare limbs of 
the trees began to sing a strange, weird 
song. Was it bidding a sad good-by to the 
summer that had passed, or yielding a 
reluctant greeting to the winter coming from 
afar? Mayhap both. But to the lonely 
wayfarer, who lingered still amid the sur¬ 
roundings of the place no longer home, the 
autumn wind, through the bare limbs of the 
trees, was sighing low a requiem: Love was 
gone. 

That pervasive atmosphere which invests 
a dwelling place with such pleasing attrac¬ 
tion and makes it home is surely none other 
than that of love. Home is the name for 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 57 

a host of beautiful virtues in combination. 
Home means rest, refreshment, refuge; com¬ 
fort, care, and confidence; honor, hope, and 
happiness; sacrifice, sweetness, and strength; 
duty and contentment; labor and light and 
life and love. Home is a box of precious 
gems wherein are found all the priceless 
jewels of the human heart. It contains the 
rich treasures of earth and heaven. It 
commingles in its sacred keep the delicate 
perfumes of the human soul and of the 
Divine Being; and the incense rising from 
love’s altar in a Christian home must surely 
regale the sense of angels and of God. There 
is no beauty like it. It is the Creator’s 
masterpiece. 

Tennyson has given in a familiar lullaby 
a suggestion intense of the beauty of home: 

“Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 

Low, low, breathe and blow, 

Wind of the western sea! 

Over the rolling waters go, 

Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me 

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 


58 


The Beauty of God 


Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 

Father will come to thee soon; 

Rest, rest, on mother’s breast, 

Father will come to thee soon; 

Father will come to his babe in the nest, 

Silver sails all out of the west 
Under the silver moon: 

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.” 

Baby hands that tangle these heart strings 
into a maze of happy delight; baby mouths 
that prattle love’s purest and simplest 
speech; baby fingers that unlock all doors; 
baby feet that go pattering through all the 
neglected chambers of the heart’s house and 
make the one-time silent spaces of the soul 
ring with love’s joy and triumph—these are 
just beauties that baby has brought us 
from the skies. Father’s labor and protec¬ 
tion, mother’s care and sacrifice, children’s 
obedience and appreciation, brother’s de¬ 
votion, sister’s affection—all these establish 
those relations most beautiful in life and 
strongest in death. Not in the world of 
foolish devices for entertainment where too 
often many forget that which is sacred, but 
in the Christian home, the sanctuary of love, 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 59 

will be found that element of being that 
makes one indeed beautiful. 

Love is a guarantee. It has been said that 
an honest man’s word is as good as his bond. 
But the word of one who loves sincerely and 
sanely is better than any bond that can be 
obtained; for it carries with it not only 
material values, but also those of personal 
interest, of time, of service, and of moral 
and spiritual support. In that most sacred 
relationship of life where two individual 
destinies are merged into one, vows are 
given, but only such vows as love can give 
and keep. And those vows will come short 
of fulfillment, unless love be the author of 
them. Wedlock without love is a very 
difficult and dangerous undertaking, cer¬ 
tain to bring unrest and unhappiness. 

When Jesus was ready to commit the 
establishment of his kingdom on earth to the 
men that he had selected and trained for his 
work, he was very careful about one thing. 
Did he enunciate a creed and have them all 
subscribe to it? Did he formulate an oath 


60 


The Beauty of God 


of allegiance and fidelity and swear them 
one by one? None of these. He asked a 
simple, searching question, addressed to 
Peter, the leader of the band, whose con¬ 
duct during the trial gave emphasis to the 
import and meaning of the question: “Si¬ 
mon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” Three 
times this question was asked; and having 
received an affirmative answer each time, 
and knowing that Peter and the rest under¬ 
stood what it meant and really loved him, 
he was satisfied. 

Assured of the fact of the love of these 
men, Christ committed to them, without 
reserve, all that he had come to this earth 
to do, all that he had lived for here, all that 
he had suffered for, all that he had died for, 
all that he had accomplished by his resur¬ 
rection and ascension. He gave to them the 
biggest, hardest, most glorious task of the 
ages and was sure that they would perform 
it because they loved him. Yes, love is the 
best guarantee in all the universe. 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 61 
Spirit 

It must be remembered that faith, hope, 
and love are, first of all, on the human side, 
merely capacities for exercise which bring 
an experience peculiar to their exercise. 
They begin with certain well-defined courses 
of action which result in certain states of 
being. If these capacities, which are en¬ 
dowments of the Creator, are not directed to 
the highest objects, the highest benefits 
will not be realized. In the Bible, faith, 
hope, and love are treated as applied to 
God and to those things well-pleasing to his 
will. So directed, they become the highest 
virtues and adorn the one who uses them 
in this way with the incomparable character 
of Deity. 

There is still a higher attainment of these 
virtues, which, though requiring man’s ef¬ 
fort, comes entirely from without man and 
from above him. It comes direct from God. 
The love proclaimed by St. Paul in the 
thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the 
Corinthians is none other than the love 


62 


The Beauty of God 


which is found in the heart of God, made 
possible to a human heart by the ministry of 
the Holy Spirit: “Love suffereth long, and is 
kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave 
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not 
easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth 
in the truth; beareth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things. Love never 
faileth.” Beautiful! 

This ideal of love is so high that one, con¬ 
templating its perfection in contrast with 
human frailty and imperfection, is likely 
to become utterly discouraged. Surely such 
excellence of love herein set forth by the 
word of divine revelation can never be 
attained by man, beset by so much infirmity 
of the flesh. But this word of divine revela¬ 
tion tells also from whence this love comes 
and how it is obtained: “God is love”; “The 
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by 
the Holy Ghost”; “If ye then, being evil, 
know how to give good gifts unto your 
children: how much more shall your heaven- 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 63 

ly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that 
ask him?” 

If the necessary conditions for obtaining 
the Holy Spirit are met, there is nothing that 
can prevent him from coming into one’s 
heart. Renunciation of every sin, absolute 
surrender to the will of God, earnest and 
continuous entreaty in prayer, unwavering 
trust in God’s promise, and a gracious ac¬ 
ceptance of His gift—these are the require¬ 
ments to be fulfilled in order that body, 
mind, and soul may be invested by the 
Holy Spirit. It is through the indwelling 
presence o: the Holy Spirit that one becomes 
possessed of this beautiful love of which 
St. Paul writes. And the possession of 
this love is the crowning glory of character. 

Some understanding of the love of God 
may be obtaine4 by contemplating the won- 
der, adaptation, and fitness of his creation. 
His love extends to the remotest bounds of 
his creation; for wherever the power of God 
is manifested his love appears. This love 


64 


The Beauty of God 


is found in the beauty and fragrance of 
flowers, in the clear, pure notes of birds, 
in scenic loveliness of pleasing landscapes, 
and in all the thrilling spectacles of nature’s 
grander forms and more powerful move¬ 
ments; in all the beneficent forces of earth 
and sea and sky; in little children with 
trustful innocence, with their laughter, tears, 
and shouts of joy; in the freshness and 
buoyancy of youth, in its wild enthusiasms 
and daring hopes; in the sturdy strength and 
courage of manhood; in the achievements of 
his industry, commerce, invention, science, 
philosophy, art, oratory, and statesmanship; 
in the sacrifice, tenderness, heroism, and 
fidelity of womanhood; in the wisdom, 
counsel, and patience of old age. 

But the love of God cannot be realized by 
contemplating his creation — mankind, of 
course; included. Creation is the work of 
love, not love itself. It is as if we looked 
upon the estate of some great landlord and 
were entranced with the wisdom, skill, and 
taste that had so wisely planned and so 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 65 

wonderfully executed, while having no per¬ 
sonal acquaintance with the owner. God’s 
love can never be communicated to the 
heart of man by views of nature, nor by 
analyzing the mind of man, however wonder¬ 
ful its endowments and achievements. To 
know God’s love we must know him per¬ 
sonally and so intimately that his love may 
flow into our hearts. This can be accom¬ 
plished only by the Holy Spirit. The beauty 
of holiness is the beauty of perfect love, and 
the beauty of perfect love is the beauty of 
God; and this beauty of God is possible to 
the one who qualifies for its reception by 
obedience, prayer, and faith. 

A prolonged drought befell the cattle 
ranges of one of our Southwestern States. 
It continued for months, and, with the 
exception of a few light showers, extended 
into years. The pasture lands became 
brown, in some places barren. The grass, 
where there was any, when trod upon broke 
loose and whirled away like chaff before the 
hot breath of the wind. The streams 
5 


66 


The Beauty of God 


stopped running and stood in pools, and 
these finally became mudholes. The poor 
cattle would drag themselves through the 
mire in vain attempts to get a drink. They 
would then come forth and stand upon the 
banks, their lank sides almost touching in 
the midst, their swollen and blackened 
tongues protruding, their appealing eyes 
lifted to the brazen heavens, and would 
utter one of the most piteous sounds ever 
heard, the cry of a brute dying for want of 
water. The ranchmen had been deceived 
time and again by uncertain indications of 
rain and had waited too long. But they 
were now rounding up their herds, and were 
driving them to distant places where water 
and grass could be found. 

One afternoon a very unusual thing oc¬ 
curred, something unknown since the 
drought began: a strong, steady, northeast 
wind sprang up. The older cattlemen said: 
“If this wind continues for twenty-four 
hours, we will get plenty of rain.” Night 
came. The ranchers slept but little, listen- 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 67 

ing, fearing, praying lest the swish of the 
northeast wind as it cut the corners of the 
cabins could be heard no longer. Now and 
then one would go outside and, peering into 
the darkness, would call back: “Fine, boys! 
No stars! Guess the clouds are still going 
over.” Morning came. The wind continued 
blowing and the clouds kept going over. 
There was a freshness in the atmosphere, the 
smell of moisture. 

Late in the afternoon, more than the re¬ 
quired time, there was a lull in the wind, an 
ominous lull. To the southwest was heard 
an indistinct rumbling as of distant thunder. 
As darkness fell, the play of lightning gleams 
could be seen upon the face of the gathering 
storm. The wind had circled and was com¬ 
ing back, heaving on strong pinions great 
banks of clouds. It broke upon the captive, 
drought-bound region with wild cries of 
deliverance. Then flashed the vivid, jagged 
streaks. Then jarred the heavy thunder 
blasts. Fierce lightning shafts ripped the 
cloud hosts with blades of fire. Raging 


68 


The Beauty of God 


thunderbolts fell upon the riven masses and 
shook them terribly, shook them until they 
let go their long-coveted treasure. 

And it came. Rain! Abundant, life- 
giving rain! The artillery of the heavens 
sped on with the advance line of the rain¬ 
storm. Its bursts of blaze finally became a 
sheen now and then, later on an occasional 
glimmer, and at last went out in darkness. 
The reverberating tones of its roll became 
less loud, then muffled, then silent. But 
still it rained. All night long, softly, music¬ 
ally, joyously, the rain could be heard upon 
the roofs of the ranch cabins. The thirsty 
land drank until it was satisfied, then gave 
to the streams, and these in turn bore the 
life-giving flood to the depleted rivers far 
removed. The grass sprang up within a 
day. All the frogs (where had they been?) 

i 

shouted with glee. The little birds came 
back, and chirped and twittered their glad¬ 
ness as they darted through the cooled and 
purified atmosphere. The cattle expressed 
their great joy and gratitude by a constant 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 69 

and generous appropriation of the grass and 
water now so abundant. Man and beast 
rejoiced together. The rain had removed the 
desolation of drought and brought the full¬ 
ness of physical life. 

The coming of rain upon the drought- 
stricken land does not illustrate in detail the 
coming of the Holy Spirit upon the desolate 
human heart. It may, at least, suggest its 
need and, in some measure, portray its 
effect. There is this difference: nature knows 
her need and cries out for relief; man is 
subject to the delusions of sin, may not 
realize his distress, and may thus make no 
appeal for deliverance. But nature can only 
call for help with no assurance of answer, for 
her call is often to a sky as destitute as her¬ 
self. Not so with man. Let him realize 
his barrenness and death and call for relief 
and God will answer with fullness of refresh¬ 
ment and life. 

Along the horizon where the finite and the 
infinite meet are heaped cloud stores of 
grace awaiting the Cry of the needy soul. 


70 


The Beauty of God 


Call. Though the answer may be as tongues 
of flame and sound of rushing mighty wind, 
that which was needed shall be received: 
cleansing, refreshment, sustenance. Though 
one be born of the Spirit, the things of the 
Spirit cannot live and grow in one unless the 
Spirit come in due season to keep clean, re¬ 
vive, and make grow. Whether the Holy 
Spirit come in seeming turbulence as that of 
drenching storm, or in gentle quietude like 
saturating mist from cloud-robed dawns, 
His presence brings refreshment and the 
restoration of life. 

“One thing we can know about this filling 
of man by God, this communication of the 
Holy Spirit, that it is natural and not un¬ 
natural, that it is the restoral of communica¬ 
tion, that it is a reenthronement of God 
where he belongs, that the prayer which in¬ 
vokes the Holy Ghost is the breaking down 
of an artificial barrier, and the letting in of 
the flood of divine life to flow where it 
belongs, in channels that were made for it. 
If we know this, then the occupation of 


Manifold Beauty of Human Life 71 

man’s life by God is simply a final fact. It 
is like the occupation of the body by the 
soul. No man can tell how it is; but that 
it is, is testified by every form of strength and 
beauty in which our eyes delight.” (Phillips 
Brooks.) 


IV 

JESUS CHRIST 

f I H HE beauty of God is seen most 
perfectly in Jesus Christ. Possess¬ 
ing a perfect human body, mind, and 
soul, human nature at its best is found 
in him. Possessing also the perfect mind 
and heart of Deity, he was able to unfold 
the excellence of the divine nature, and in 
such terms of human life as man could com¬ 
prehend. “He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father,” he said to Philip; and as men 
have come to know Christ they have come 
to know God. 

1. It brings us very close to Jesus to 
know that he had a birthday just like the 
rest of us, that as a helpless infant he was 
dependent upon a human mother, upon the 
bounty of her breast, that her arms nestled 
him, her hands ministered to his wants, and 
her love comforted him. The lowliness of the 
circumstances of his birth and the poverty 
( 72 ) 


Jesus Christ 


73 


of the place in which he was born identify 
him with the humblest of earth’s children, 
and reminds us that he was intensely 
human; while the marvelous light that 
shone from the Judean night sky on the 
occasion of his birth, and the message and 
the song of praise and promise from the 
angel host, as well as the adoration of the 
shepherds at the manger in Bethlehem, 
proclaim the baby Jesus as none other than 
the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. 

Heaven and earth came together when 
Jesus was born. He beautified the lowly 
things of life by coming into this world in 
extremely needy conditions. Wealth and 
wisdom found their highest honor at the 
feet of the infant Christ, when the wise men 
of the East came with their costly gifts and 
their reverent worship. No longer now can 
poverty and a humble station be considered 
as barriers to the presence and favor of the 
Most High. No longer now can riches and 
learning be esteemed as sufficient in them¬ 
selves to satisfy the demands of the im¬ 
mortal soul of man. 


74 The Beauty of God 

2. As we follow Jesus in his earthly 
ministry we find revealed in his personality 
and character: tenderness, compassion, cour¬ 
age, strength, wisdom, purity, and love; 
utter sacrifice of self and unflinching en¬ 
durance of suffering; unswerving will in 
absolute fidelity to the will of God; complete 
mastery of the material forces of land and 
sea and sky; dominion in the realm of 
spirit, where angels ministered unto him 
and demons fled at his command; power to 
break the bans of death and open the gates 
of life—features of the divine beauty both 
gentle and masterful. 

3. “A man of sorrows, and acquainted 
with grief.” Yes, that was said of Jesus, and 
truly said. To us sorrow and grief wear no 
halo of beauty. But Jesus has taught us 
that sorrows may be God’s clouds that let 
down his grace like rain to make our hearts 
yield fruits of righteousness, and that griefs 
may be God’s plowshares that break the 
hardened surface of our earth-bound interest, 
in order that we may receive the showers 



Jesus Christ 


75 


and sunshine of his love. And when our 
self-absorbed crust is broken by the grief, 
and the cloud sorrow has dissolved itself 
and entered into us, we shall see Christ’s 
face more clearly and shall send up to him 
the fragrance of devotion and yield to him 
the ripened fruits of character. Not only 
when the sky is clear and fragrant winds 
caress the soul may the beauty of life be 
found, but also when storm winds drive 
lost hopes like dead leaves far away into the 
darkness, and misfortunes rattle down their 
cutting sleet upon the uncovered heart; 
for Christ reveals the transiency of earthly 
interests and the permanence, the fullness, 
the power, the glory of the life that is hid 
with him in God. 

Jesus transformed the cross, so long a 
sign of shame and an instrument of torture, 
into a symbol of redemption and a pledge 
of forgiveness and peace. The agony in 
Gethsemane and the bleeding form of the 
Son of God upon the cross on Calvary find 
their justification in the redeemed souls of 


76 


The Beauty of God 


men, that have accepted the offered sacrifice 
and render a joyful obedience to God’s 
will. Jesus made the cross an emblem of 
supreme beauty. 

4. “I am the light of the world,” said 
Jesus, and the claim has proved true. Men 
have seen as never before since Jesus came. 
By means of light the activities of the world 
are carried on; mistakes are avoided, dangers 
discovered, disasters averted, labors ac¬ 
complished, goals reached. Jesus is the 
source of all illumination: material light, 
light of truth, light of righteousness, light 
of love. Sunlight is God-light, for by his 
creative genius was the sun conceived. His 
hand kindled its blazing fires, and from his 
laboratories they are maintained. When 
men walk by the light of the sun, they 
find their way. When men walk by 
Christ, they do not stumble in the 
darkness of error, ignorance, and sin; nor 
do they lose their way in the maze of 
life’s puzzling problems. They discover the 
grounds upon which individual honor and 


Jesus Christ 


77 


capacity are founded. They find the under¬ 
lying principles upon which all worthy 
institutions are builded. No individual, no 
community, no state can miss the path to 
peace and power while “the Light of the 
World” shines clear upon the situation and 
men have eyes to see and wisdom to heed. 

Light not only reveals beauty, but light 
makes beauty. The sun floods the earth 
with light. Verdant hills and fertile plains 
with their growing fields are brought to 
view. The sun himself has put that verdure 
on the hills and made those growing fields 
upon the fertile plains. Revealed are myriad 
shades of red and gold and pink and purple 
of fruits in tended orchards, while gorgeous 
colors and delicate hues of cultivated flower- 
gardens are seen, as well as those of wild- 
blown bloom on lonely wastes. The sun 
has placed those color pigments in the fruits 
and flowers. Jesus makes the beauty of 
life. Is there beauty in the heart of com¬ 
passion, in kindness, in purity, in courage, in 
heroism, in unselfish service, in the coun- 


78 


The Beauty of God 


tenance and soul of a loving friend? Jesus 
brought these virtues into being, and has 
nurtured them by his stimulating and sus¬ 
taining power of light. Health and joy and 
growth and strength must have light for 
their continuance and development. Jesus 
is the light that brings the virtues of man 
to realization, completes their perfection, 
and reveals the excellence of their beauty. 

5. Jesus is the way, the safe, sure, perfect 
way to a glorious destination. Jesus is the 
way through this world’s wilderness of 
complex problems, tangled motives, and 
interminable growths of ignorance, selfish¬ 
ness, and prejudice. Jesus is the way when 
other ways look feasible and inviting, yet 
lead astray and end in shame and death. 
Jesus is the way across life’s uncharted seas 
that heave and rock and bellow from raging 
storms of hate and lust and pride and greed. 
Jesus is the way through the darkness of 
adversity and misfortune, through the blind¬ 
ing mists of sorrow, through the deep night 
of grief. Jesus is the way through tempta- 


Jesus Christ 


79 


tion, through its allurements and its lies. 
Jesus is the way for those who have lost 
their road and have wandered into the barren 
wastes of transgression; for those who have 
become mired in the sloughs of iniquity; for 
those who have fallen into the pits of de¬ 
spair. Jesus is the way from sin to holiness, 
from death to life, eternal life. Jesus is the 
way home, the soul’s home, the Father’s 
house. 

6. Jesus is the truth—the truth with 
respect to all industry, science, invention, 
art, philosophy, sociology, commerce, states¬ 
manship, morals, and religion. When scien¬ 
tific discoveries are made, the nature and 
laws of substance as endowed by Christ are 
found; for he created them and “without 
him was nothing made.” Man’s part is to 
search out the nature of substance and find 
its controlling laws. Natural laws are God’s 
laws, from those that control the tiniest 
pebble on the hillside, which throbs in 
response to the touch of the morning sun¬ 
beam, to those which order the sun himself, 


80 


The Beauty of God * 


ninety-three million miles away in dis¬ 
tance, whose heart is a rushing tempest of 
fire and whose mighty power holds the on- 
sweeping planets in their courses. 

(1) The laws of lever, cog, band, friction, 
heat, light, steam, electricity, and chemical 
action—all are God’s laws. The inventor 
merely learns mechanical relationships and 
applies their laws. The chemist finds the 
qualities of matter and by analysis, reduc¬ 
tions, and combinations produces a formula 
before unknown. God gives to inventor and 
scientist the material and the mind with 
which to work. Though they may work 
without any reference to or recognition of 
the Great Creator, as they arrive at truth 
in their respective spheres they are none 
the less, in the material world, workers 
together with the God of truth. 

(2) Jesus is the truth concerning all 
industrial life. Labor and capital have a 
hard time adjusting their claims. Why? 
Because each is actuated by a principle 
which Jesus condemned, the principle of 


Jesus Christ 


81 


selfishness. Eliminate selfishness and sub¬ 
stitute the principle which Jesus advocated 
and exemplified, which is love, and all 
differences disappear. This has been done 
in some instances and it has worked beauti¬ 
fully; capitalist and laborer both receive 
their dues and are satisfied. It is simple 
enough, but it is hard for the unregenerate 
mind to comprehend. As long as men, 
individually or collectively, are moved by 
selfishness, so long will there be unrest and 
dissatisfaction. Jesus is the truth in trade 
and commerce as found in community, in 
state, or between the nations of the earth. 
There is no other solution of industrial 
problems. Jesus, the Son of God, is the 
solution and the only solution. 

In establishing harmonious and helpful 
conditions in the community the social 
worker is successful only as he builds upon 
the foundation principles enunciated by 
Christ. The home builder succeeds in find¬ 
ing domestic peace and felicity only as his 
family life is regulated by the teachings of 
6 


82 


The Beauty of God 


Jesus. The statesman leads his country into 
realms of honor, prosperity, and permanent 
national power only as he is able to get his 
countrymen to accept and put in practice 
those fundamental truths of life proclaimed 
by Jesus Christ. Society, home, and state 
become beautiful when they embody the 
teaching and the spirit of the Son of God. 

(3) Jesus is the truth with regard to 
morals. There have been many teachers of 
morals in all the ages of the world’s history. 
None have approached-Jesus in thorough¬ 
ness of moral analysis. Even Moses, in¬ 
spired as he was, whose teachings have done 
so much for the moral government of the 
world, did not enunciate the ultimate quality 
of moral responsibility. Jesus traced this 
fundamental quality of moral character to 
its source, the thought and desire. Whoso 
looketh and lusteth is guilty, though the 
overt act is not committed. Morality and 
religion are so closely related that it is very 
hard to differentiate them. One cannot be 
truly moral unless one be truly religious. 


Jesus Christ 


83 


The immoral act finds its rise in the thought 
and desire. If one’s thought and desire be 
immoral, immoral deeds will follow, unless 
one is restrained by motives of expediency, 
fear, shame, or what not. If one refrains 
from the deed through such motives, one can¬ 
not be accounted moral. The character is 
unsound, immoral. The fountain must be 
cleansed if the stream is to be pure. So 
taught Jesus. The genuineness of moral 
beauty is found in Jesus and in him alone. 

(4) Jesus is the truth with respect to 
religion. The world has had many religions 
through all the periods of its history, some 
of them, for their time, not bad. Jesus gave 
the world the true religion, the religion that 
saves man, body, mind, and soul. The 
religion of Jesus, if accepted without reserva¬ 
tion, will remove every evil from the heart, 
will foster and bring to the beauty of per¬ 
fection all the good within man, and wili 
make possible every virtue that God can 
bestow. The religion of Jesus is one of 
hope, of enlargement, of joy, of peace, of 


84 


The Beauty of God 


liberty, of infinite beauty, life, power, and 
glory. It is freedom from sin, possession of 
holiness, union with God, the All-wise, All- 
powerful, All-compassionate Father. The 
beauty of religion is found in Jesus and in 
him alone. 

Jesus did not modify, but intensified, the 
estimate of sin. According to him, sin is 
not only an error, a mistake, a misfortune, 
but an inevitable and direful calamity. Sin 
is death. He revealed the deformity of sin 
not only by his teaching, but by contrast 
with his sinless life. Those who look upon 
Jesus, and have eyes to see, behold the 
beauty of holiness over against the ugliness 
of sin as found in perverse human nature. 
Jesus further shows that the penalties of 
sin are such as would bankrupt mankind in 
an attempt to pay and still leave the debt 
unpaid. He alone met the awful obligation 
and set man free. Jesus neutralized the 
venom of sin by receiving it, your sin and 
mine, into the laboratory of his own pure 
soul. Jesus cleanses the fountains of man’s 


Jesus Christ 


85 


soul so that it sends forth pure, sweet, heal¬ 
ing floods of feeling, thought, and purpose. 
Jesus removes the deadly drag of past sins 
by canceling them. The sense of utter 
helplessness and unfitness caused by present 
sin is taken away because the sin is removed. 
The future holds no terrors when one ad¬ 
vances in his name. Advance in his name. 
The darkness, if there be any, shall be lifted. 
Obstructions must give way. Victory and 
peace are certain through Jesus Christ. 

Christ alone has solved the mystery of 
sin and has broken its power. “ Regenera¬ 
tion is not merely a Christian theory; it is a 
dynamic experience. It is as really a part 
of the spiritual world as is transformation of 
the physical world. Matter everywhere 
sags, slumps, falls to the lowest possible 
level. Life seizes on it, lifts it up in the 
flower, in the tree, in the man—works a 
miracle before our admiring eyes. A thing 
of beauty tells the success that life has 
won. . . . ‘Beauty is a sign language which, 
interpreted, reads, Made in Heaven .’ Every 


86 


The Beauty of God 


man who was once a dead weight, a mere 
mass of matter to be carried carefully in 
the home of the Church, yet in spite of 
everything slipping perpetually to the lowest 
level of self-indulgence, uselessness, parasit¬ 
ism, who comes under the sway of a force 
reaching down from above and lifting him 
out of his old-time degradations, is as un¬ 
deniable an evidence of regeneration as the 
seed lifted out of the sand or mud into a 
flower is of transformation.” (Charles 
Wood.) 

Jesus gave to the world the correct con¬ 
ception of the one, true God. Many of the 
heathen nations supposed that Diety was 
invested in numerous personalities. These 
were worshiped by the performance of 
superstitious and often debasing rites. 
Others believed in one god, but far removed, 
so far away that he was not interested in the 
actual life of man, so mysterious that to 
think of him was confusion, so terrible that 
men were sore afraid when they thought 
him near. To the average Jew of ancient 


Jesus Christ 


87 


time God was high and lifted up, not to be 
approached with confidence and with much 
assurance of receiving consideration from 
him. To the Jew of Jesus’s time, God was 
dormant, one that had figured in the past 
history of the nation, but was no longer 
active in the affairs of mankind. So far as 
the Jewish Church was concerned as rep¬ 
resented by the scribes and Pharisees, God 
was dead. Jesus so revealed the existence 
and nature of God that men felt him near, 
were encouraged to seek his forgiveness and 
to enter into the fellowship of his love. 
Jesus emphasized the Old Testament con¬ 
ception of the unity and personality of God, 
and disclosed features of his nature that 
men had never known. He gave us a new 
name for God, that of Father. 

“All the degradation, even of the highest 
religions, has sprung from this, that their 
votaries forgot that religion was a commun¬ 
ion with God himself, a life in the power of 
his character and will and employed it as 
the mere communication either of material 


88 


The Beauty of God 


benefits or of intellectual ideas. It has been 
the mistake of millions to see in revelation 
nothing but the telling of fortunes, the 
recovery of lost things, decisions in quarrels, 
direction in war, or the bestowal of some 
personal favor. And though in these days 
we seek from the Bible many desirable 
things, such as history, philosophy, morals, 
formulas of assurance of salvation, the for¬ 
giveness of sins, maxims for conduct, yet 
all these avail us little, until we have found 
behind them, the living Character, the Will, 
the Grace, the Urgency, the Almighty 
Power, by trust in whom and communion 
with whom alone they are added unto us.” 
(George Adam Smith.) 

7. Jesus is the life. Life cannot be defined. 
Its manifestations, however, are evident. 
Some understanding of its nature may be 
gotten by an observation and a study of 
these manifestations. Thus may be gained 
a better knowledge of the Author of life. 

(1) A marked characteristic of life is its 
power of appropriation. Place one end of a 


Jesus Christ 


89 


dead stick within the ground, water it, 
cultivate it, let the sunshine fall upon it, 
give it air. The stick will rot. A live stick 
with a few appendages called roots, if 
planted in the soil and given the same 
attention, will grow. It will appropriate 
and assimilate the elements that made the 
dead stick rot and will transmute them into 
fiber, bark, leaf, flower, and fruit. Cattle 
appropriate the grass and grain and turn 
them into flesh and bone. The mind appro¬ 
priates and assimilates the facts and forces 
of the world in which it lives and turns them 
into utilities for daily need, into inspirations 
to greater achievements, and into specifica¬ 
tions for enlarged and more intensive plans 
of activity. When mind life dies, though 
body life continues, the being that is left 
no longer utilizes the facts and forces of the 
world for good. Confinement and protection 
must be provided for the one whose mind 
life dies. 

The soul that has the life of Christ within 
appropriates all experiences through which 


90 


The Beauty of God 


it passes, whether they be those of sorrow or 
of joy, of failure or of success, of struggle or 
of peace, and changes them into the beauty 
and the strength of noble seasoned character. 
Wherever living trees are planted in the 
ground, however bare the soil may be, with 
proper care, the yield of flower and fruit 
will come. Wherever men are found that 
have the life divine within them, however 
bare of good may seem the place in which 
they find themselves, there will appear in 
them the attributes of beauty found in 
Jesus Christ. Such the transforming power 
of Christ—life in the soul that hard condi¬ 
tions, if they are necessary, are not simply 
to be borne but may be made to yield 
adornments for the soul. 

Jesus was subject to influences and to 
conditions that had brought to other men 
despair. Poverty, loneliness, lack of ap¬ 
proval, avowed disapproval, misunderstand¬ 
ing, misrepresentation, and bitter opposi¬ 
tion were utilized by him and made to yield 
nutrition for his character and for his work. 


Jesus Christ 


91 


Trouble in the breast of Jesus changed to 
peace. He did not turn away the cup of 
death, but drank it to its bitter dregs. But 
when death had entered into him it was 
death no longer. The victory gained upon 
the cross was not, as men surmised, a vic¬ 
tory of death, but that of life. 

(2) A prevailing feature of life is variety. 
There are 50,000 known species of the 
butterfly family. The display of a collection 
of butterflies in a museum is bewildering in 
the number of shades and combinations 
of color shown. The work of a human 
artist seems pitiable in comparison. The 
best that man can do is to copy, but im¬ 
perfectly, the array of colors there revealed. 
When one succeeds in approaching in his 
art the wonder and the beauty thus dis¬ 
played, that one is called an artist. What 
about that great Artist who conceived those 
delicate tints and glowing hues and traced 
them on those animated wings of gauze, and 
sent them fluttering here and there to settle 
now and then at will on leaf and flower, 


92 


The Beauty of God 


radiant wisps of life afloat on summer 
breeze? And yet butterfly life is a very in¬ 
significant part of life. 

Bird life is more advanced and variety 
therein is more enlarged. To colorful plum¬ 
age and graceful sweep of wings is added 
call note trills that come like dancing rills 
of joy from throated music fountains. Bird 
life is beautiful in form, in plumage, in 
movement, in habit, and in song. What 
about Him who conceived this beauty, 
worked it out, put life within it, and sent 
it flying, singing, rejoicing throughout the 
earth? And yet bird life is just a little part 
of this world life. If one could learn of all 
the beauty that there is in flowers, in shrubs, 
in trees, in birds, in fish of stream and sea, 
in wild things that inhabit woods or roam 
the plains or dwell in mountain homes, one 
would then just be beginning to get some 
idea of life’s varied beauty. 

In higher spheres of life this varied 
beauty still increases. It may be found in 
man’s more perfect physical form, in the 


Jesus Christ 


93 


endowments of his intellect, in the passion 
of his love, in the sweep of his imagination, 
in the royal dominance of his reason, in the 
regal sway of his volition, in the infinite 
reach of his immortal spirit. Then it is well 
to study human hearts and faces and human 
souls. Find those whose springs of thought, 
of feeling, and of will are fresh like living 
fountains. Listen to the baby’s gurgle and 
feel the wriggle of its soft, sweet body in 
your arms. Learn childhood’s secrets, the 
hopes and fears and loves that burn within 
the breast of little children. And look upon 
the face of youth, untrammeled and undis¬ 
mayed, and let the glow of its enthusiasm 
stir your heart and put to shame discour¬ 
agement and fear. Stand in awe before the 
man who works and wins, who blends with 
persevering toil the zeal that guarantees suc¬ 
cess. Behold the tenderness and sacrifice 
of woman’s love. Learn wisdom at the feet 
of aged ones who, on the heights of life, see 
the coming dawn of a life beyond. 

The mind and character of Jesus are 


94 


The Beauty of God 


infinite in the variety and beauty of their 
manifestation. All the ideas of grace, of 
harmony, and of utility, which have been 
wrought out in pleasing forms of fitness, 
capacity, and adaptation, were conceived 
and executed by Christ. His character is 
just as truly varied in its manifestations 
and in its adjustments as that of his creative 
genius. Jesus is the one universal character, 
the only one that has appeared in all the 
history of the world. The rich, the poor, the 
learned, the unlearned, the sick, the well, 
the young, the old—all alike may find in 
him a personal friend. Owing to tempera¬ 
mental, social, educational, financial, and 
racial differences, you and I cannot make 
for ourselves a very large circle of intimate 
friends. We cannot understand nor be un¬ 
derstood by very many people. No such lim¬ 
itations are found in Jesus. Through all the 
centuries to the present time his friends are 
numbered by the millions. He is the univer¬ 
sal friend. 

In making of himself congenial company 


Jesus Christ 


95 


in such widely separated groups, the Saviour 
does not interfere with their peculiar per¬ 
sonal traits, provided that these traits are 
not blameworthy. Neither does he change 
the racial characteristics of the nations 
of the earth. He so identifies himself with 
all the different nationalities that they feel 
he is their very own. To the Christian 
American, Jesus is the one perfect, ideal 
man; but the ideal is American. To the 
Chinese Christian, Jesus is also the one 
perfect, ideal man; but the ideal is Chinese; 
and so it is with those of all the other races. 

His discernment of the needs of each is so 
clear, his ability is so great, and his sympa¬ 
thetic interest in the welfare of every one is 
so genuine and so deep that there is posi¬ 
tively no one but that may find in him a 
very present help, an abiding loving friend, 
and an almighty personal Saviour. To 
every one who will accept it, he gives the 
conscious realization of his mighty, saving 
power. Jesus does not belong to any one 
class, any one race, to any one age. He is 
the one universal character. 


96 


The Beauty of God 


(3) Another characteristic of life’s nature 
is its productiveness. This feature is obvious 
and needs no illustration. We gather fruit 
and the trees are left to bear again next 
year, knowing well that life in them, with 
proper care, will bring forth fruit again in 
season. Mind life produces thought; heart 
life, affection. The beauty of the mind is 
found alone in that which it produces; 
while love and trust together, with their 
kindred virtues, which result in kindly 
deeds and acts of mercy, are products that 
unfold the beauty of the heart. The Chris¬ 
tian life is a productive life. St. Paul 
enumerates the fruits of spiritual life: “Love, 
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good¬ 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance.’’ Beau¬ 
tiful virtues of the Christian life! “By their 
fruits ye shall know them.” 

From Jesus Christ comes sustenance for 
all life on earth. We make a vast mistake 
when we believe a seed has life inherent, 
apart and alone. Should God withdraw 
himself, no seed could germinate. The seed 


Jesus Christ 


97 


is just God’s method of perpetuating that 
phase of life which he ordained. “In him 
we live, and move, and have our being.” 
Our physical life is just as dependent upon 
. his power as is our spiritual life. The differ¬ 
ence is that he has made our spiritual life 
subject to our choice. He gives us physical 
life for a period, then offers spiritual life 
forevermore. If accepted, he guarantees to 
nourish and sustain it throughout eternity. 
An apple tree may bear for fifty years, an 
olive tree for one thousand years, and the 
Sequoia of the high Sierras will produce 
foliage and cones for five thousand years. 
But trees will die and their productiveness 
will cease. Not so of Him who is the “tree 
of life whose leaves are for the healing of the 
nations.” “Because I live,” said Jesus, 
“ye shall live also.” 

(4) And still another manifestation of 
life is power. Life is the strongest of all 
forces. It is stronger than any material 
force. The pull of gravitation is down, but 
it cannot hold back the growing plant. To 
7 


98 


The Beauty of God 


the extent of its endowment, the plant 
grows upward and in spite of gravity. An 
acorn dropped within the crevice of a 
mountain cliff sends tendril roots throughout 
the interstices of its rocky home. During the 
first year’s growth these rootlets are so 
frail and tender that they could be crushed 
between two fingers of the hand. Let fifty 
years pass by. Those rootlets have become 
great gnarled and twisted cables, pulsating 
in the confines of their stony channels. Some 
day in spring, when the sap is running 
strong, those bound-up roots that need more 
room give one expansive throb. The big 
rock, that had long withstood the thrust 
of life in growing root, now trembles and 
gives way and falls with thunderous crash. 
But this is life within its lower forms. 

Human life is stronger than all other kinds 
of earthly life, because it is endowed with 
mind, a form of life possessed by no other 
part of earth’s creation. It took fifty years 
for the roots of the oak to prize loose the 
bowlder from the precipice. Man, with a 


Jesus Christ 


99 


stick of dynamite which he has made, can 
do it in a moment, and incidentally carry 
home the shattered fragments of the oak 
for firewood. Man at the beginning, ap¬ 
parently, was a very helpless creature. Con¬ 
fined to one locality by wilderness on one 
side, by impassable mountains on another, 
by raging rivers here and surging seas out 
yonder; subject to freezing cold and suffocat¬ 
ing heat, to sting of poisonous insect and 
bite of venomous serpent; the prey of cruel 
beasts—it seemed that man had no chance 
to live. But man could think. So man sat 
down and thought, the thing the dull 
material forces that surrounded him could 
never do. The wild beasts could not get 
their thoughts together in such order as to 
arrive at logical conclusions. They had 
instinct unerring so far as it could go, but 
instinct could not compete with the in¬ 
genuity of rational will. 

Man thought him out some weapons of 
defense and conquest, means of penetrat¬ 
ing the wilderness, of scaling the mountains, 


100 


The Beauty of God 


of crossing the rivers, and of sailing the 
seas. Mind force took dominance of all the 
forces of the world. Great libraries are 
now required to tell even in part what mind 
has done. If all were written, there could 
not be made enough books to tell the story. 
A full account to-day would be quite incom¬ 
plete to-morrow. Overnight some new dis¬ 
covery or some new invention would be 
made. The power of mind is beautiful in 
its majestic strength. 

The power of spiritual life is stronger than 
that of mind life, for it includes mind life 
and more. Spiritual life is the strongest 
force in the universe because it is God life. 
Spirit can do what nothing else can do. 
Spirit can save and Spirit alone. Other 
forces may seem stronger, but in the last 
analysis they break down in comparison and 
in results. 

Money power is great, but money power, 
as such, is in the end destructive. Political 
power, exercised without regard to the God 
of wisdom and justice, at last breaks down 


Jesus Christ 


101 


or brings disaster. Selfish interest may 
become a very active and potential force, 
but the end attained is just the opposite of 
the one desired. Selfishness does not save 
self, but destroys self. The force of mind, to 
whatever channel directed, may exhibit 
strength; but if there is no spiritual ap¬ 
prehension associated with its processes, 
and no recognition of God in the application 
of its results, mind force thus exercised will 
finally bring trouble in place of peace, even 
death instead of life. Spiritual life alone 
can save, for it is God life. 

Jesus exemplified in himself the power 
of spirit life. He could control the physical 
forces of earth. The winds and waves 
obeyed him. Blind eyes were made to see, 
deaf ears were made to hear, dumb mouths 
were made to speak, paralyzed limbs were 
made to leap, sick bodies were made to be 
well. Jesus had supreme control in the 
sphere of mind. He could divine the secret 
thoughts of others, not only in those 
present but also in those absent. He could 


102 


The Beauty of God 


analyze men’s motives and take the measure 
of their sincerity. He knew the mechanism 
of the human mind and could set it in 
order. The insane were restored to sanity. 
He could sound the depths of the human 
heart and determine the degree of its loves 
and hates. He could, and can to-day, 
cleanse the heart of all unclean affection and 
establish there the fountain of pure love. 
He was supreme within the realm of spirit. 
Demons fled at his command and angels 
came upon his call. The spirits of those 
who had left the body, at the summons of 
the Son of God, came back and dead men 
lived again. 

Satan tried to find some weakness in the 
character of Jesus, but assailed in vain the 
impregnable fortress of his soul. Death got 
hold of him, but could do nothing with 
him, could not keep him. He submitted 
himself to death, then turned on death 
within its own confines and conquered it. 
He laid down his life and took it up again. 
He is Master of life. He is life itself, the 
Life. 


Jesus Christ 


103 


8. Not only does Jesus possess life in the 
fullness of its beauty and majesty, but also 
has the power, through the agency of the 
Holy Spirit, to communicate this life to 
others. This is his mission to mankind. 
He said: “I am come that they might have 
life, and that they might have it more 
abundantly.’’ Again: “I am the resur¬ 
rection and the life: he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live; and 
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die.” And again: “He that believeth 
in me hath everlasting life.” St. Paul said: 
“The gift of God is eternal life through 
Jesus Christ our Lord.” These scriptures 
and a host of others afford ample assurance 
of God’s power and willingness to give to 
man the strongest of all forces, the power of 
life eternal. 

The Christian need not fear nor be dis¬ 
couraged by the evil forces of this world. 
They often grieve and vex and hinder for 
a time, but they cannot prevent the develop¬ 
ment of the Christ-life in the soul nor bring 


104 


The Beauty of God 


to naught service that is rendered in the 
name of Christ. Vain ambitions, foolish 
pursuits, cowardly injustices, ignominious 
prides, cruel taunts, and brutal greeds are 
frequently encountered in the Christian’s 
progress to the crowning glory of eternal 
life. But worldly forces are noisy, rude, 
apparent. They have a show of strength 
which they in fact do not possess. Because 
of their temporal nature and of their inferior 
and often iniquitous source they cannot 
prevail. Opposition to them proves good 
discipline for courage, faith, and endurance. 
Combat with them strengthens the very 
sinews of the soul. The Christian exercises 
superior forces, good forces, life forces which 
are quiet, unassuming, tender, but very, very 
strong. Honor, justice, kindness, com¬ 
passion, patience, purity, truth, and love are 
potential powers as well as virtues. The 
fact is, all virtues have power, life power. 
In the end they triumph and triumph 
eternally. 

There is no task nor duty that belongs to 


Jesus Christ 


105 


us as children of God that cannot be per¬ 
formed through the agency of the Holy 
Spirit, who is the representative on earth 
of the Son of God. There is no excellency 
of character that should be ours that we 
cannot attain through the spirit life of Jesus 
Christ established within the soul. The 
evils that surround us shall come to naught. 
Their glories shall be whirled away like 
wreaths of dissipating smoke before the 
wrath of an offended and righteous God. 
Righteousness shall endure. When shall 
have passed the earth itself, its ashes blown 
like meteor dust upon the wandering drifts 
of the universe, we shall be safe at home with 
God, perfecting in his good way the infinite 
endowments of our beings, glad in the con¬ 
sciousness of abiding security, happy in the 
fulfillment of the ever-enlarging mission of 
our immortal spirits. 

There is much confusion as to the nature 
of spiritual life. It is assumed by many that 
spiritual life is just a part of one’s being; by 


106 


The Beauty of God 


some it is esteemed a very insignificant part: 
whereas it includes the whole of personality, 
intellect, sensibility, and will. One’s religion 
is not just a part of one’s life, to be cultivated 
and exercised in a peculiar province all its 
own. Religion includes all of life. It 
requires the whole man, body and mind and 
soul. Jesus made it plain that in order to 
be his disciple, discipleship must be made 
first; that a whole-hearted, whole-bodied, 
whole-minded service is the only kind he 
could accept. 

This absolute surrender to Christ does 
not interfere with the application of the 
mind to any worthy exercise, nor interfere 
with any legitimate affection, neither does 
it preclude any laudable activity. This 
obedience to Christ is a guarantee of 
strength. The intellect will think more 
clearly, the heart will respond only to that 
which is good, and volition will be directed 
only to those projects which are commend¬ 
able. In addition, divine wisdom and love 
and strength are pledged to cooperate. “ If 


Jesus Christ 


107 


any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, 
that giveth to all men liberally, and up- 
braideth not; and it shall be given him. But 
let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” 
(St. James.) “God dwelleth in us, and his 
love is perfected in us.” (St. John.) All 
power is given unto me in heaven and in 
earth. Go ye therefore: . . . lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world.” 
(Jesus Christ.) 

Spiritual life is a conscious life, as much 
so as in our animal or rational life. Do you 
know that you live? that you think and 
love and strive and rejoice? Yes, indeed! 
Then you may know that your sins are 
forgiven, that you are at peace with men and 
God. Surely we would not have been 
created with a sense of certainty in regard 
to the less important facts of our being and 
left without the means of establishing with¬ 
out doubt those facts of essential and eternal 
value. Yes, you may know whether your 
will is in accord with the divine will or at 
variance with it. You may know that this 


108 


The Beauty of God 


eternal life is now within you, giving you 
dominion over sin and making you brave 
and true and strong and full of confidence, 
hope, and peace. You may know that you 
have eternal life. “The Spirit itself beareth 
witness with our spirit, that we are the 
children of God.” (St. Paul.) “He that 
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness 
in himself: . . . and this is the record, that 
God hath given to us eternal life, and this 
life is in his Son.” * (St. John.) 

Assurance is essential to success, what¬ 
ever be the undertaking. Success can only 
come when confidence is established. The 
business man succeeds when he is assured of 
the integrity and cooperation of those with 
whom he is associated; when he believes in 
himself, in his fitness for his task; when he is 
convinced of the needs for the product of his 
labor. The religious man attains success in 
his religion when he doubts not that the 
promises of the Head of the Church will be 
fulfilled, and believes that they are fulfilled 
in every present requirement; when he has 


Jesus Christ 


109 


a deep consciousness of God’s approval and 
in his constant guiding presence. Assurance 
of salvation is not only a privilege, but a 
necessity. 

Definitely Christ fulfills all prophecy con¬ 
cerning himself. A prophecy by Isaiah has 
been beautifully portrayed by a painting 
in one of the great art galleries. The picture 
is that of a mother kneeling by the casket 
in which had been placed the body of her 
dead child. Like a white rosebud of early 
spring, withered by untimely frost, the little 
one lay quiet, robbed of the promise of a 
life of fragrant usefulness and beauty. The 
mother kneeling there is looking across the 
casket through the window upon the glory 
of the setting sun, which is flooding the 
death chamber with glowing but decreasing 
radiance. Underneath the picture are in¬ 
scribed the words of the prophet: “The sun 
shall be no more thy light by day; neither 
for brightness shall the moon give light unto 
thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an 


110 


The Beauty of God 


everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither 
shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the 
Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the 
days of thy mourning shall be ended.” 
Beautiful prophecy! Wonderfully fulfilled 
in Jesus Christ! His resurrection and his 
promise of resurrection to all who believe 
on him move the distracted, desolate human 
heart to a great hope and to a steadfast 
confidence in a restoration and enlargement 
of all life’s worth-while interests. To every 
one who trusts him he witnesses through 
the Holy Spirit his living presence, which is 
life for this world and life forevermore. 

This endless life of peace and victory, 
which begins on earth and never ends, is 
compensation beyond computation for all 
the heartaches and pain of struggle through 
which this earthly pilgrimage takes us. 
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with 
men, and he will dwell with them, and they 
shall be his people, and God himself shall 
be with them, and be their God. And 


Jesus Christ 


111 


God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes; and there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain; for the former 
things are passed away. And he that 
sat upon the throne said, Behold, I 
make all things new.” This is from the 
message of the risen and ascended Lord 
which he gave to the beloved disciple John 
on Patmos. 

Jesus Christ is the Author and Giver of 
eternal life. “He that hath the Son hath 
life, and he that hath not the Son of God 
hath not life.” (St.John.) Thus endowed, 
man may appropriate and assimilate all that 
is good in the legitimate and necessary 
experiences that come to him, whether they 
be experiences of happiness or of anguish, of 
peace or of struggle, of success or of failure, 
of renown or of renunciation. He may dis¬ 
play much of the varied beauty and benef¬ 
icence found in Christ. He may exercise in 
large measure the strength which Jesus 


112 The Beauty of God 

manifested, upheaving mountains that ob¬ 
struct his God-appointed way and casting 
them into the depths of the sea, never to be 

raised again. If necessary, this Christ-man 

« 

may go through fire to his task and come 
thereform with even no smell of fire upon 
his garments. The grave shall be to his tri¬ 
umphant feet a passageway through which he 
treads into “the city that hath foundations, 
whose builder and maker is God.” Regions 
of light shall be his final habitation, realms 
of power his dominion. Spheres of influence 
without limitation and domains for service 
without obstruction shall be his heritage. 
Life in perfection of adjustment, in com¬ 
pleteness of satisfaction, in fullness of ex¬ 
hilaration and in the harmony and splendor 
of divine beauty shall be forever his posses¬ 
sion. Eternal life! 


V 

/ 

CONCLUSION 


TT is claimed that at an early date the 
fine arts were given more attention and 
better development by heathen nations 
than by God’s own chosen people Israel. 
This is true with respect to some of the 
fine arts, but not of all. Sculpture and 
architecture were brought to a high state of 
excellence by heathen artists. But the 
ancient Hebrews were interested in a finer 
art than that of the so-called fine arts. Their 
art consisted, not in fashioning into perfect 
contour and pose a cold and lifeless form 
from bronze or marble, but in molding a 
human personality into a being possessed 
of all the splendid attributes of truth and 
righteousness. The material upon which the 
Hebrew artist worked was not insensate 
stone, but sentient soul with an eternal 
destiny. His quarry was not a rock pile, 
but the deep consciousness of his own im- 
8 (113) 


114 


The Beauty of God 


mortal Spirit. Each workman found within 
himself the block to be hewn and shaped and 
polished. His ideal was not a combination 
of all the finer points of physical perfection, 
but the symmetrical blend of all the virtues 
commended by divine revelation. With the 
chisel of conviction driven by the hammer 
blows of indomitable will, lighting each 
stroke by a persistent and transcendent 
faith, he wrought well. Witness Abraham, 
Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Naomi, Sam¬ 
uel, David, Esther, Daniel, and Isaiah. The 
statues of Phidias would suffer in com¬ 
parison. If there is an art gallery in heaven, 
these worthies of old will surely be on ex¬ 
hibition. It will be worth while to look on 
them. 

Mark this: Those of heathen nations who 
attained eminence in art were reverent 
worshipers of the highest deity they could 
find, and they used the best moral and 
spiritual light afforded them. This shows 
that the moral ideal and the recognition of 
Deity are necessary to the finest art in any 


Conclusion 


115 


age. Painting, music, and even sculpture 
have come to the highest perfection in the 
Christian era. The inspiration and inter¬ 
pretation of the Christian ideal has lifted 
these arts to hitherto unknown realms of 
beauty. 

Note this also: Not only is it necessary to 
the production of art to have a great soul, 
illuminated by divine light, in order to 
produce it, but it is also necessary for those 
who interpret it and for those who receive 
the interpretation to be great in soul and 
thus illuminated. Much of our fine music 
is spoiled in the rendition. Mean little 
creatures, contracted by selfishness and 
pride, though possessed of trained voices or 
hands, fail utterly to express the meaning 
of those great composers whose very souls 

throbbed with the heavenly harmonies which 

( 

they reproduced. The rendition is lifeless, 
soulless, having the form without the power. 
Or if the one who sings or plays measures up 
to something of the full meaning of the 
composition, and the one who listens is not 


116 


The Beauty of God 


moved, the hearer himself is convicted of 
littleness and meanness. The absence of 
technical training in the hearer is not a 
good excuse for lack of appreciation. Lack 
of training in the listener may prevent him 
from getting the meaning; however, it is 
not his ignorance of technique, but because 
he knows not the regions of high and holy 
thought, sentiment, and aspiration. A great- 
souled musician with proper gifts and train¬ 
ing, rendering a great composition before an 
audience of sincere and reverent people, even 
though they be untutored, will transport 
his audience with him into spheres of 
harmony where the author of harmony 
dwells. 

The conclusion is inevitable that in order 
to apprehend the beauty of God, whether 
revealed in nature, in man, or in Jesus 
Christ, there must be such an adjustment of 
thought, feeling, and taste that the impact 
of the divine revelation thereon may be 
sensible and real, forming in the soul true 
and ample conceptions of the beauty of 


Conclusion 


117 


God. This adjustment is made by the 
Divine Spirit. St. Paul said: “The things 
of God knoweth no man. Now we have 
received, not the spirit of the world, but 
the spirit which is of God; that we might 
know the things that are freely given to us 
of God.” To understand this revelation of 
beauty wherever found, a knowledge of Him 
who has made the revelation is essential. 
The spirit of the Master is necessary to 
interpret the works of the Master and to 
comprehend the Master himself. The Chris¬ 
tian alone can apprehend the fullness and 
glory of the beauty of God as found in 
nature, in man, and in Jesus Christ. 

“And let the beauty of the Lord our God 
be upon us.” (Moses.) 










































































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